{"id":130125,"date":"2025-08-08T22:08:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T22:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130125\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T22:08:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T22:08:16","slug":"slain-nyc-boy-angel-mendoza-recently-fell-in-with-bad-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130125\/","title":{"rendered":"Slain NYC boy Angel Mendoza recently fell in with bad crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bronx teen savagely slain<\/a> for being in the wrong place at the wrong time had recently fallen in with a troubled crowd, prompting his worried parents to take drastic steps \u2014 with his dad even hiding his shoes to try to keep him at home.<\/p>\n

A rebellious turn by 14-year-old Angel Mendoza \u2014 who was pistol-whipped, beaten and repeatedly stabbed late Tuesday in apparent revenge for a playground fight he wasn\u2019t involved in \u2014 began in May, when the formerly good student started skipping class, his father Miguel Mendoza told The Post on Friday.<\/p>\n

Miguel Mendoza blamed the bad influence of his son\u2019s friends for him starting to stray off the straight-and-narrow path.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would hide the shoes so he won\u2019t go out, but he\u2019d find a way to go out,\u201d the heartbroken dad said.<\/p>\n

The parents of Angel Mendoza, 14, described Friday how they recently struggled to keep him on the straight-and-narrow. Georgett Roberts\/NYPost<\/p>\n

Angel, who wasn\u2019t involved in gangs or crimes, was viciously killed by a group of fellow teens, police said. Family handout<\/p>\n

The change in Angel \u2014 who was not in a gang or involved in any criminal activity, according to law-enforcement sources \u2014 was concerning enough that Miguel Mendoza said he contacted authorities seeking some kind of help, to no avail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to family court, they did nothing,\u201d he said. \u201cI called the police, they said he\u2019s a minor, they can\u2019t do nothing. I went to ACS, they did nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angel Mendoza regularly hung out at Williamsbridge Oval Playground in Norwood, where he played basketball like his favorite NBA players LeBron James and Ja Morant, his father said.<\/p>\n

He was at the playground Tuesday evening when a group of teens attacked him in apparent revenge for the stabbing of a 17-year-old boy earlier that evening, source said.<\/p>\n

Angel was not involved at that fight or involved in it in any way but may have known people who were part of it \u2014 making his death a senseless case of \u201cwrong place, wrong time,\u201d sources said.<\/p>\n

Angel\u2019s mother Ramona Hernandez de Mendoza is inconsolable Friday. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

Miguel Mendoza, who cradled Angel\u2019s inconsolable mother Ramona Hernandez de Mendoza at times as he spoke, remembered his son as a loving child who was fond of rap, reggaeton and dance.<\/p>\n

He said Angel was born in the Dominican Republic, the second of three siblings, and had moved to the city when he was 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a hole in my heart because my son is not here,\u201d the dad said. \u201cHe\u2019s gone.\u00a0He\u2019s not coming back.\u00a0He was my first boy. I\u2019m very angry \u2014 a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want justice to be served.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bronx teen savagely slain for being in the wrong place at the wrong time had recently fallen…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":130126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,4219,5248,27813,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,8626,5305,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,11108],"class_list":{"0":"post-130125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-murders","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-stabbings","19":"tag-the-bronx","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-youth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114995429751532816","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}